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Post by bbg95 on Jul 1, 2021 14:18:50 GMT -5
I'm a couple episodes into One World, and it doesn't seem that bad so far. Granted, I've felt that way about a lot of bad seasons early on. Just getting to know the characters in the first couple of episodes is generally pretty good even in bad seasons, and the same goes for the merge episode.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 3, 2021 21:55:38 GMT -5
Well, that didn't take long. After four episodes, I am officially out on One World. Virtually the entire cast irritates or bores me. Colton in particular may be my least favorite Survivor player ever and is pretty clearly a terrible person. He should not have been cast. The one guy on the men's tribe that I did like was Bill, as he reminds me of Fabio (Bill is from Venice, CA, so he talks like a surfer). But he's gone now after the men's tribe made what Jeff correctly called perhaps the dumbest move in Survivor history when they decided to give the women's tribe the immunity idol and attend tribal council after winning immunity. And people wonder why the quality of the competition Kim faced is called into question. I also can't believe that the rest of the men didn't get together and decide that Colton is a cancer who needs to go. He has an idol, but so what? Just split the votes between him and someone else and send him home.
At any rate, given how quickly I soured on the entire cast, it will take a miracle for this to not be a bottom five season. It might even be dead last, though Redemption Island will be hard to top. I just checked, and it looks like there are eleven episodes still to watch. This is going to be interminable.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 6, 2021 11:00:53 GMT -5
Colton getting medevaced was pretty satisfying. Normally, I feel bad for anyone who gets evacuated, with the exception of Shamar in Caramoan. Add Colton to that list. He was such a bully and so terrible to Bill and Christina that I have to agree with Jonas who chalked up Colton's demise to karma. I also normally have sympathy even for most of the quitters on Survivor, as I think most of them actually have legitimate reasons. Colton is the one I have zero sympathy for, as he quit on day seven (the weather had been perfect too) because he was salty that the game wasn't going the way he had planned. There was something very fitting about how Colton was ostracized by the rest of his tribe in Blood v. Water after he had so mistreated people in One World. Good riddance.
It is weird how they keep going to tribal council when people get medevaced, though. They did that with Kourtney back in the premiere and again now. I don't recall another season where they had a tribal council just to announce that someone got medevaced. They also wasted a bunch of time on an extremely boring ice cream reward in which the winning tribe just talked about how much they liked the ice cream. There wasn't any strategizing or anything. This probably should have been left on the cutting room floor. That also reminds me that the swap was right up there with Caramoan as the most lopsided in Survivor history, as all the strong players except Monica ended up on Salani. And of course Colton voted out Monica right away because he's terrible at Survivor.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 8, 2021 9:08:06 GMT -5
Wow, the One World merge was actually pretty boring. That almost never happens on Survivor. The men are just hopelessly divided, and they're almost all bad players (Troyzan is decent, but that's about it). Jonas seemed like a nice guy that almost everyone liked, but his "plan" was never going to work. In theory, Troyzan probably should have used his idol on Jonas since he knew that's who the other side was after. But the problem with that is the other men were so bad at the game that I don't think they would have stayed together. Tarzan in particular stands out as both a bad player and a bad person. Other than Kim, there isn't really any of the women who stand out as a particularly good player either. Sabrina and Chelsea are just okay. This has to be up there with Gabon as one of the weakest casts strategically from top to bottom (excluding Kim) in Survivor history. Kim is like Kramer beating up on children in karate.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 8, 2021 14:51:29 GMT -5
I would actually put One World's cast as strategically weaker than Gabon. In Gabon, at least the players generally seemed to understand that they needed to try to have a solid plan to have the majority at subsequent tribal councils. I'll grant that the Onions (Marcus/Charlie/Corinne/Jacquie, later augmented by Randy/Bob) made getting and keeping a majority more difficult for themselves by making it obvious who they liked and who they didn't, and the non-Onions had plenty of their own problems that would have made it difficult for any of them other than Matty and maybe Ken to eventually win. But the men in One World seemed to be completely unaware of the importance of planning for the future, spanning multiple vote-offs/tribal councils. The One World women other than Kim were not much better; once you watch through the final tribal council I can probably comment more about them.
I can't say that I agree that Troyzan was even a decent player in One World. Better than Tarzan, Leif, Jay - sure, because he realized what was going to happen with Kim before many of the other players - but that's not a high bar. One of the things that allowed players like Chris (Vanuatu) and Danni (Guatemala) to make it to the end and win despite being in the minority at the merge was generally not revealing what their plans were beyond what was necessary to make it through one vote at a time, and also generally not antagonizing members of the majority alliance. Maybe you haven't seen all of the relevant episodes of Troyzan in One World yet, but I would argue he failed pretty miserably at both of those things I mentioned.
Below is spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen Cambodia or Game Changers:
This is probably a topic for another time, but Troyzan is one of the first names I think of when considering players whose first appearance did not warrant a second appearance. I think it was completely fair that he lost the fan vote to get into Cambodia-Second Chance. (In retrospect, maybe he would have been better than Jeff Varner, but at the time Troyzan lost the fan vote I wasn't sad at all.) Nothing Troyzan did in One World made me think he was either particularly likely to win or particularly likely to be more entertaining if he came back a second time (I acknowledge that how entertaining a player is is a factor in terms of the producers deciding who gets to make second, third, etc. appearances). When they brought Troyzan back anyway for Game Changers and he got shut out at the final tribal council vote...I wasn't surprised at all.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 8, 2021 15:17:31 GMT -5
I would actually put One World's cast as strategically weaker than Gabon. In Gabon, at least the players generally seemed to understand that they needed to try to have a solid plan to have the majority at subsequent tribal councils. I'll grant that the Onions (Marcus/Charlie/Corinne/Jacquie, later augmented by Randy/Bob) made getting and keeping a majority more difficult for themselves by making it obvious who they liked and who they didn't, and the non-Onions had plenty of their own problems that would have made it difficult for any of them other than Matty and maybe Ken to eventually win. But the men in One World seemed to be completely unaware of the importance of planning for the future, spanning multiple vote-offs/tribal councils. The One World women other than Kim were not much better; once you watch through the final tribal council I can probably comment more about them. I can't say that I agree that Troyzan was even a decent player in One World. Better than Tarzan, Leif, Jay - sure, because he realized what was going to happen with Kim before many of the other players - but that's not a high bar. One of the things that allowed players like Chris (Vanuatu) and Danni (Guatemala) to make it to the end and win despite being in the minority at the merge was generally not revealing what their plans were beyond what was necessary to make it through one vote at a time, and also generally not antagonizing members of the majority alliance. Maybe you haven't seen all of the relevant episodes of Troyzan in One World yet, but I would argue he failed pretty miserably at both of those things I mentioned. Below is spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen Cambodia or Game Changers: This is probably a topic for another time, but Troyzan is one of the first names I think of when considering players whose first appearance did not warrant a second appearance. I think it was completely fair that he lost the fan vote to get into Cambodia-Second Chance. (In retrospect, maybe he would have been better than Jeff Varner, but at the time Troyzan lost the fan vote I wasn't sad at all.) Nothing Troyzan did in One World made me think he was either particularly likely to win or particularly likely to be more entertaining if he came back a second time (I acknowledge that how entertaining a player is is a factor in terms of the producers deciding who gets to make second, third, etc. appearances). When they brought Troyzan back anyway for Game Changers and he got shut out at the final tribal council vote...I wasn't surprised at all. Sure, "decent" is only in comparison to the other men.* At least Troyzan knew enough to look for the idol...but as you point out, that's a pretty low bar. And I haven't finished the season yet, so my opinion may change a bit. I did just see him buy Kim's lie that Mike was targeting him hook, line and sinker. He didn't even seem to talk to anyone else to verify that Mike had actually been targeting him, so yeah, that's pretty bad. I guess if you ignore the winners of the two seasons, One World's cast probably is weaker on the whole. But Kim was a much better player than Bob, who is the worst winner ever in my view. Both casts are terrible. But yes, I will be interested to learn your thoughts once I finish the season, which will probably be in a week or so. *This most definitely includes Colton, who deserves special reproach. He was terrible at all aspects of the game and took advantage of arguably the dumbest starting tribe in Survivor history. He did nothing physically either around camp or in challenges. He was also a bully that irritated everyone except for other terrible people like Alicia and Tarzan. I imagine that he would have been Russell-level hated if he had somehow made it to the end. And strategically, he was the mastermind behind the decision to give the women immunity after already winning the challenge when up by just one in the numbers. His plan to vote out all the stronger guys was also misguided. An alleged superfan should know that it's generally not a good idea to vote out strong challenge players pre-swap. He also had the shocked Pikachu face when there was a swap the next episode (they had been rare in the preceding seasons, but still). Edit: Another problem I noticed with Troyzan is that I definitely think he made the wrong decision to side with the Colton, Leif, Jonas and Tarzan side instead of the Matt, Mike, Jay and Bill side. Troyzan was well-positioned to play the middle there, and he blew it. Since he was one of the few people who actually was a fan of Survivor beforehand, he also should have known that voting out the stronger guys was a bad idea. And it made even less sense for him to do it than for Colton, who could theoretically rely on his relationships with the women. The last men vs. women season is a cautionary tale, as the older men got rid of all the younger men and then got Pagonged after the merge by the women. Chris only won because the women's alliance imploded and because they felt sorry for his girlfriend at the family visit, so they decided to spare him and vote out Eliza instead. He actually had nothing to do with that decision.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 8, 2021 17:25:07 GMT -5
I definitely agree that Kim was way better than Bob, but (and obviously this is just my opinion and basically not measurable) her greatness overall does not lift the overall strategic performance of the One World cast above the Gabon cast. There were individual moments of strategic play by several players in Gabon that were actually pretty good. The Onions, dumb as they were about making it obvious who their friends were, made the right call to boot Dan when they did (rather than Susie), and also did a good job of choosing people to sit out of challenges pre-merge when they had more tribe members than Fang. Susie's decision to vote off Marcus with Ken and Crystal seemed obvious to the audience, but compared to the One World men who somehow believed that Kim was going to keep them over Chelsea/Sabrina, Susie is a genius. Sugar was a mess in general, but she picked the right time to jettison Ace even in light of all the questionable/bad decisions she made. I've seen people criticize Bob for the fake idol he made which led to Randy getting voted out (because Bob needed Randy's vote to win), but overall I think Bob played the fake idol pretty well in that spot - he didn't rub the fake idol in Randy's face like pretty much everyone else left in the game besides Corinne did, and the fake idol bought him credibility (if that's the right word) with Sugar. Bob's second fake idol was another solid play because it induced Ken to make the mistake of voting for Matty unnecessarily.
I agree that Bob was not a strong winner - one of the weakest for sure - but I think Fabio (Nicaragua) was even weaker. Bob's fake idols - even if the other players were largely responsible for them spinning into bigger problems for them than they should have been - were at least an active part of playing the game on his part. Fabio won three immunity challenges in a row near the end (just like Bob), and (although this wasn't shown a whole lot in the edit) apparently did a good job of staying friendly with the majority of the post-merge cast. While I think players don't necessarily need to make "big moves" to win (and in some cases not making a "big move" can indeed be better)...I can't really point to one significant strategic thing (outside of winning the challenges of course) that Fabio did to avoid being the worst winner ever. I don't think Fabio wins if NaOnka and Purple Kelly don't quit. Getting people to like him or at least not hate him did not get Fabio any control or even knowledge of how many of the important votes in Nicaragua were going to go.
Back to One World...I agree that Troyzan looking for the idol was good, but that was about the end of what was good about his idol play. I also agree that in general, it is a bad idea to vote out strong challenge players pre-swap, short of them doing something like sabotaging the camp or something else toxic/harmful. So yes, Troyzan screwed up by aligning with Colton/Leif/Jonas/Tarzan. I think Tarzan (or in an ideal world, Colton!) could have been voted off first by the stronger guys plus Troyzan, and Troyzan could still have kept Leif and Jonas basically on his side for the future. I also agree that Colton was terrible at every part of the game, and should not have been as shocked by the swap as he was (the lack of swap in Heroes vs. Villains could be explained by the theme, the lack of swaps in Redemption Island and South Pacific could be explained by the Redemption Island twist - and Nicaragua, of course, had a swap!) Colton definitely was not deserving of returning (moreso than Troyzan). At least Colton left early again in Blood v. Water and Caleb was not like Colton at all.
As for Chris in Vanuatu...yes, the women (or at least the alliance led by Leann and Ami) basically decided independently (without any suggestion from Chris) that Eliza should be voted out before Chris. You're right to point out the similarities between Vanuatu and One World, in that the men got picked off in part because the divides between their alliances ran deep, and some of the men in each season seemed to believe that some of the women were going to side with them post-merge when in reality that didn't have much chance of happening (Sarge/the other members of Sarge's alliance with Twila and to a lesser extent Julie in Vanuatu, Jay/Michael/Troyzan for at least the Jonas boot with Kim/Chelsea/Sabrina/Kat in One World). Chris does deserve credit for realizing that pretty much all of the other women disliked/distrusted Eliza, doing his best to make sure that he didn't do anything to annoy them, getting Julie to tell him that Eliza was going to be targeted, and then cementing Eliza's vote for Leann when Leann was voted out. Twila and Scout knew that they were probably not going to win if Eliza got voted out and Leann/Ami/Julie were heading to be the final 3, so they initiated the counter-move to boot Leann - but Scout and Twila had no credibility with Eliza. As far as I can remember (it's been a while since I've seen Vanuatu or read about it), Eliza basically would not have believed that she was going to get voted out if Twila and Scout had told her that to get her onboard with voting out Leann. The vote to get Leann only worked because Chris was there to get Eliza to join in.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 8, 2021 19:09:04 GMT -5
I definitely agree that Kim was way better than Bob, but (and obviously this is just my opinion and basically not measurable) her greatness overall does not lift the overall strategic performance of the One World cast above the Gabon cast. There were individual moments of strategic play by several players in Gabon that were actually pretty good. The Onions, dumb as they were about making it obvious who their friends were, made the right call to boot Dan when they did (rather than Susie), and also did a good job of choosing people to sit out of challenges pre-merge when they had more tribe members than Fang. Susie's decision to vote off Marcus with Ken and Crystal seemed obvious to the audience, but compared to the One World men who somehow believed that Kim was going to keep them over Chelsea/Sabrina, Susie is a genius. Sugar was a mess in general, but she picked the right time to jettison Ace even in light of all the questionable/bad decisions she made. I've seen people criticize Bob for the fake idol he made which led to Randy getting voted out (because Bob needed Randy's vote to win), but overall I think Bob played the fake idol pretty well in that spot - he didn't rub the fake idol in Randy's face like pretty much everyone else left in the game besides Corinne did, and the fake idol bought him credibility (if that's the right word) with Sugar. Bob's second fake idol was another solid play because it induced Ken to make the mistake of voting for Matty unnecessarily. I agree that Bob was not a strong winner - one of the weakest for sure - but I think Fabio (Nicaragua) was even weaker. Bob's fake idols - even if the other players were largely responsible for them spinning into bigger problems for them than they should have been - were at least an active part of playing the game on his part. Fabio won three immunity challenges in a row near the end (just like Bob), and (although this wasn't shown a whole lot in the edit) apparently did a good job of staying friendly with the majority of the post-merge cast. While I think players don't necessarily need to make "big moves" to win (and in some cases not making a "big move" can indeed be better)...I can't really point to one significant strategic thing (outside of winning the challenges of course) that Fabio did to avoid being the worst winner ever. I don't think Fabio wins if NaOnka and Purple Kelly don't quit. Getting people to like him or at least not hate him did not get Fabio any control or even knowledge of how many of the important votes in Nicaragua were going to go. I think you're giving Bob too much credit and not giving Fabio enough credit. I don't think Bob controlled a single vote the entire game, whereas I think Fabio at least had a lot of say over Holly getting voted out (granted, he had immunity, so that helps). Certainly, neither was a strategic mastermind. Fabio voted correctly on six of 10 votes, while Bob voted correctly on five of nine (he was on the wrong side of four consecutive votes from the Marcus through the Corrine boots). I disagree that either of Bob's fake idols were used well strategically. The first one especially was sort of the fake idol version of a "big move," as it was something that looked cool but was actually pretty dumb. They didn't need the fake idol to send Randy home, and it put his jury vote in jeopardy for no good reason. Bob was lucky that Randy was more upset about the cookie incident with Susie than he was about the fake idol. As for the other one, I have written about how Bob (and everyone else) bungled that tribal before. But the important thing for Bob is that he actually was targeting Matty at that vote and used the fake idol to induce Kenny and Crystal to vote out Matty. This makes no sense for Bob, as Matty would beat him at Final Tribal Council 100% of the time. He lucked out that Kenny inexplicably split the votes incorrectly, even though he had reason to believe the idol was fake, which led to Corinne to getting voted out. As an aside, I think Kenny almost certainly cost himself a million dollars by making this move.Edit: As carsonvega pointed out, the above doesn't make a lot of sense. I better explained my thinking on this in a comment on the next page. As for Fabio's game, I think he was much better liked than Bob, as I think all five of Fabio's votes were pro-Fabio rather than anti-someone else (some of them really disliked Chase and/or Sash, but all of them also liked Fabio and didn't just view him as the lesser of multiple evils). On the other hand, I think the only person in Gabon who really liked Bob was Sugar, and all four of his votes were anti-Sugar/Susie rather than pro-Bob. (Edit: as carsonvega again pointed out, this is probably not entirely accurate, as Charlie did seem to have a decent relationship with Bob). Would Fabio have won if NaOnka and Purple Kelly hadn't quit? It's hard to say, but I think he still could have won immunities to get to the end. It depends on how early he was targeted. But overall, I don't think a single person on the jury disliked Fabio except NaOnka, and of course, she came around eventually and even voted for him. And I think it goes both ways with Bob. If Sugar actually wanted to win the game, Bob gets voted out at final four no questions asked. And let's not forget that Bob was on the verge of becoming Erik 2.0 and getting voted out after giving the necklace to Kenny, but Sugar intervened to save him. I guess Bob deserves credit for his relationship with Sugar, but she was very capricious (her top ally was first Ace and then Kenny and finally Bob). He was lucky she picked him as her favorite last. But she was really his benefactor in the game and the one who was actually driving the strategy late. Counterintuitively, Bob was also lucky that Susie won final immunity, because if she hadn't, he's stuck with an unwinnable matchup with Matty at FTC. I think Fabio also faced tougher competition than Bob, as I think Gabon is the worst cast ever just measured by who its best player was. At least One World had one very good player, even if it has the lowest quality in terms of its median. Nicaragua had several players who I think were better than anyone in Gabon. And Fabio was infinitely better than Bob at Final Tribal Council. He actually faced a strong challenge from Chase who almost out of nowhere had one of the best FTC performances ever for a losing finalist. Fabio also turned in a strong performance to ensure that he still won. Meanwhile, Bob had probably the worst FTC performance ever for a winner, in which he openly admitted that he was "riding coattails" the entire game. His only saving grace was that Susie was just as bad as he was, and Sugar was actively trying to get zero votes to avoid a scenario where she accidentally prevented Bob from winning. Over on RHAP, they made a great video about why Fabio won Nicaragua, which I have embedded below. Overall, I have Bob DFL in my winner rankings, and I don't think it's really that close between him and my second-worst, Amber. Fabio is probably somewhere around 30th. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts, even though I disagree on this particular topic. I'll respond to the rest of your comment in a bit when I have some time.
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jul 8, 2021 21:06:08 GMT -5
I'm watching the show Wicked Tuna and there is the captain called David Marciano. I could have sworn he looks a lot like Boston Rob and was related, then I checked and saw Boston Rob's surname is Mariano.
Adrenaline get pumping whenever they hook up a tuna on the line. I struggled with a 10-20 lb blackfin tuna years ago, cannot imagine what the struggle is like with a 1000 pounder hooked, let alone a "small" 300 pounder.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 8, 2021 22:28:25 GMT -5
Back to One World...I agree that Troyzan looking for the idol was good, but that was about the end of what was good about his idol play. I also agree that in general, it is a bad idea to vote out strong challenge players pre-swap, short of them doing something like sabotaging the camp or something else toxic/harmful. So yes, Troyzan screwed up by aligning with Colton/Leif/Jonas/Tarzan. I think Tarzan (or in an ideal world, Colton!) could have been voted off first by the stronger guys plus Troyzan, and Troyzan could still have kept Leif and Jonas basically on his side for the future. I also agree that Colton was terrible at every part of the game, and should not have been as shocked by the swap as he was (the lack of swap in Heroes vs. Villains could be explained by the theme, the lack of swaps in Redemption Island and South Pacific could be explained by the Redemption Island twist - and Nicaragua, of course, had a swap!) Colton definitely was not deserving of returning (moreso than Troyzan). At least Colton left early again in Blood v. Water and Caleb was not like Colton at all. As for Chris in Vanuatu...yes, the women (or at least the alliance led by Leann and Ami) basically decided independently (without any suggestion from Chris) that Eliza should be voted out before Chris. You're right to point out the similarities between Vanuatu and One World, in that the men got picked off in part because the divides between their alliances ran deep, and some of the men in each season seemed to believe that some of the women were going to side with them post-merge when in reality that didn't have much chance of happening (Sarge/the other members of Sarge's alliance with Twila and to a lesser extent Julie in Vanuatu, Jay/Michael/Troyzan for at least the Jonas boot with Kim/Chelsea/Sabrina/Kat in One World). Chris does deserve credit for realizing that pretty much all of the other women disliked/distrusted Eliza, doing his best to make sure that he didn't do anything to annoy them, getting Julie to tell him that Eliza was going to be targeted, and then cementing Eliza's vote for Leann when Leann was voted out. Twila and Scout knew that they were probably not going to win if Eliza got voted out and Leann/Ami/Julie were heading to be the final 3, so they initiated the counter-move to boot Leann - but Scout and Twila had no credibility with Eliza. As far as I can remember (it's been a while since I've seen Vanuatu or read about it), Eliza basically would not have believed that she was going to get voted out if Twila and Scout had told her that to get her onboard with voting out Leann. The vote to get Leann only worked because Chris was there to get Eliza to join in. All right, as for the rest of this, I pretty much agree with what you said about One World. I didn't think of redemption island as being a reason for no swaps in the previous two seasons. Personally, I think it was primarily because production wanted the captains (Rob, Russell, Coach and Ozzy) to all have their own tribe. Also, with South Pacific specifically, Jeff seemed to be under the mistaken impression that Redemption Island was a universally beloved season, so I think he just wanted to do exactly the same thing in the next season. There also hadn't been a swap in either Tocantins or Samoa, so it was five of the previous six seasons with no swap, but it did happen in Nicaragua, and it had happened in nine of the 10 seasons prior to Tocantins. Plus, both men vs. women seasons had a swap, so I think if anything, I would definitely expect one. Honestly, after the first swap in Africa, no one should be surprised by one. I agree about Troyzan. I think he should have gathered the rest of the tribe to split the votes between Colton and Tarzan to send one home and get rid of Colton's idol at the same time (I'd put four votes on Colton and three on Tarzan because Colton is more likely to cause trouble). At the next tribal, they'd send the other one home, and Leif would be expendable if they had to attend a third tribal. And yes, I very much agree that Colton was entirely undeserving of a second chance, and production got very lucky that Caleb was such a gentleman, as well as a pretty good character and player. As for Vanuatu, I definitely agree that Chris deserves a lot of credit for taking advantage of the opportunity he was presented, even if he didn't have much to do with it arising in the first place. One small correction is that I'm pretty sure the person who told him that Eliza was being targeted was Twila rather than Julie. But Chris did have good relationships with a lot of the women, and he was the one who could and did convince Eliza to flip. Eliza did indeed hate Scout and Twila, and it's extremely unlikely that she would have believed them, which is why Twila told Chris that he had to do it. Edit: Troyzan had an opportunity to make a major move two votes in a row with his idol, as Kim told him the plan both times, but he dutifully followed her orders. Since he had an idol, he could have easily gotten one of the women out of the game (targeting a weaker one like Kat or Alicia or Christina would have been the wisest option to play around the possibility of one of the stronger women having found an idol). If he plays his idol on Mike, then I think Kim would be absolutely compelled to play her own idol on herself just to make sure that she doesn't go home. And then they're back to parity. Plus, Mike and Jay would know for certain that the women had betrayed them, and this could have been the thing that finally united the men. But nope.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Jul 9, 2021 7:13:01 GMT -5
Troyzan: I am not sure that getting rid of the strongest in you tribe pre merge is a bad strategy. Boston Rob and Russell are among the players that changed this type of strategy. They put a premium on keeping players they trusted, regardless of what it may do to the tribe in winning challenges.
Then take One World - where it was/is possible for the men to believe they could still be physically advantaged against the women in challenges w/o their strongest players. From Troyzan's perspective - it could have been a good strategy to rid the strongest players so that he would be more likely to be the strongest player at merge. The problem (and I don't remember the specifics) one has to have a strong relationship with your alliance. I don't think Tryozan chose the right people to align with (as they were horrible players that easily flipped). It is possible that the men in that season were so dysfunctional - there was no good choices?
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 9, 2021 10:21:48 GMT -5
Troyzan: I am not sure that getting rid of the strongest in you tribe pre merge is a bad strategy. Boston Rob and Russell are among the players that changed this type of strategy. They put a premium on keeping players they trusted, regardless of what it may do to the tribe in winning challenges. Then take One World - where it was/is possible for the men to believe they could still be physically advantaged against the women in challenges w/o their strongest players. From Troyzan's perspective - it could have been a good strategy to rid the strongest players so that he would be more likely to be the strongest player at merge. The problem (and I don't remember the specifics) one has to have a strong relationship with your alliance. I don't think Tryozan chose the right people to align with (as they were horrible players that easily flipped). It is possible that the men in that season were so dysfunctional - there was no good choices? Trust is important, sure, but so is challenge strength, especially before the swap (or merge, depending on the season). Rob was voted out first at the merge in Marquesas in part because his tribe kept losing (and also because of his bad gameplay that made him a target), so he didn't have the numbers. As for Russell, well, he was fortunate that Galu was so fractured. And of course Rob was the victim of this kind of thinking when he and Russell went to war in Heroes v. Villains, with Russell coming out the victor. And then in RI, Rob was the beneficiary of the Zapateras stupidly throwing a challenge while up by just two to get rid of Russell. If the Zapateras don't do that, they likely have the numbers at the merge, and then Rob's tribe is likely Pagonged. As for One World, I suppose it's possible that the men thought they could still win challenges without their strongest people, but that seems rather foolhardy to me. Stronger people tend to make your tribe better at challenges, so getting rid of them will tend to make your tribe worse at challenges, which can lead to a losing streak. We saw this happen in both Pearl Islands and Heroes v. Villains once Drake and the Villains started voting out some of their stronger people. It makes more sense to get rid of stronger people after the swap, especially if they're originally from the opposing tribe. And there's plenty of time to get rid of the strong people after the merge. Nobody ever wins every single challenge after the merge. Being the strongest player at the merge isn't even necessarily a good thing, as that often just makes you a target. Being the strongest player very late (like final five or so) is a good thing, though.
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bluepenquin
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Post by bluepenquin on Jul 9, 2021 11:30:28 GMT -5
Troyzan: I am not sure that getting rid of the strongest in you tribe pre merge is a bad strategy. Boston Rob and Russell are among the players that changed this type of strategy. They put a premium on keeping players they trusted, regardless of what it may do to the tribe in winning challenges. Then take One World - where it was/is possible for the men to believe they could still be physically advantaged against the women in challenges w/o their strongest players. From Troyzan's perspective - it could have been a good strategy to rid the strongest players so that he would be more likely to be the strongest player at merge. The problem (and I don't remember the specifics) one has to have a strong relationship with your alliance. I don't think Tryozan chose the right people to align with (as they were horrible players that easily flipped). It is possible that the men in that season were so dysfunctional - there was no good choices? Trust is important, sure, but so is challenge strength, especially before the swap (or merge, depending on the season). Rob was voted out first at the merge in Marquesas in part because his tribe kept losing (and also because of his bad gameplay that made him a target), so he didn't have the numbers. As for Russell, well, he was fortunate that Galu was so fractured. And of course Rob was the victim of this kind of thinking when he and Russell went to war in Heroes v. Villains, with Russell coming out the victor. And then in RI, Rob was the beneficiary of the Zapateras stupidly throwing a challenge while up by just two to get rid of Russell. If the Zapateras don't do that, they likely have the numbers at the merge, and then Rob's tribe is likely Pagonged. As for One World, I suppose it's possible that the men though they could still win challenges without their strongest people, but that seems rather foolhardy to me. Stronger people tend to make your tribe better at challenges, so getting rid of them will tend to make your tribe worse at challenges, which can lead to a losing streak. We saw this happen in both Pearl Islands and Heroes v. Villains once Drake and the Villains started voting out some of their stronger people. It makes more sense to get rid of stronger people after the swap, especially if they're originally from the opposing tribe. And there's plenty of time to get rid of the strong people after the merge. Nobody ever wins every single challenge after the merge. Being the strongest player at the merge isn't even necessarily a good thing, as that often just makes you a target. Being the strongest player very late (like final five or so) is a good thing, though. Yes - survivor strategy 101 is get rid of the weak players pre merge so you are better able to win challenges and have the numbers at merge. Then it quickly became apparent to get rid of the strong players after the merge. This made women - and particularly older women very vulnerable in the beginning and strong young men most vulnerable to get voted out after the merge. The game changed when there were multiple tribal switches - and today players are much more apt to make short term alliances (and pecking orders for the original tribe begin to reveal themselves post merge). Those two things make winning pre merge challenges less critical. There is a 'newer' strategy that thinks in terms of alliances within tribes instead of just keeping with making the tribe strong. Players like Tony (and many more) aren't going to just keep someone in their tribe that is going to try and vote them out just to make the tribe strong and win challenges. It is much more dynamic than this. Rob and Russell were among the first to think this way.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 9, 2021 11:53:27 GMT -5
Trust is important, sure, but so is challenge strength, especially before the swap (or merge, depending on the season). Rob was voted out first at the merge in Marquesas in part because his tribe kept losing (and also because of his bad gameplay that made him a target), so he didn't have the numbers. As for Russell, well, he was fortunate that Galu was so fractured. And of course Rob was the victim of this kind of thinking when he and Russell went to war in Heroes v. Villains, with Russell coming out the victor. And then in RI, Rob was the beneficiary of the Zapateras stupidly throwing a challenge while up by just two to get rid of Russell. If the Zapateras don't do that, they likely have the numbers at the merge, and then Rob's tribe is likely Pagonged. As for One World, I suppose it's possible that the men though they could still win challenges without their strongest people, but that seems rather foolhardy to me. Stronger people tend to make your tribe better at challenges, so getting rid of them will tend to make your tribe worse at challenges, which can lead to a losing streak. We saw this happen in both Pearl Islands and Heroes v. Villains once Drake and the Villains started voting out some of their stronger people. It makes more sense to get rid of stronger people after the swap, especially if they're originally from the opposing tribe. And there's plenty of time to get rid of the strong people after the merge. Nobody ever wins every single challenge after the merge. Being the strongest player at the merge isn't even necessarily a good thing, as that often just makes you a target. Being the strongest player very late (like final five or so) is a good thing, though. Yes - survivor strategy 101 is get rid of the weak players pre merge so you are better able to win challenges and have the numbers at merge. Then it quickly became apparent to get rid of the strong players after the merge. This made women - and particularly older women very vulnerable in the beginning and strong young men most vulnerable to get voted out after the merge. The game changed when there were multiple tribal switches - and today players are much more apt to make short term alliances (and pecking orders for the original tribe begin to reveal themselves post merge). Those two things make winning pre merge challenges less critical. There is a 'newer' strategy that thinks in terms of alliances within tribes instead of just keeping with making the tribe strong. Players like Tony (and many more) aren't going to just keep someone in their tribe that is going to try and vote them out just to make the tribe strong and win challenges. It is much more dynamic than this. Rob and Russell were among the first to think this way. Sure, if you genuinely can't trust someone, then voting them out makes sense. But that usually doesn't happen in a vacuum at the very beginning of the game. And I think there's a difference between pre-merge challenges and pre-swap challenges. I think it almost never makes sense to throw a challenge before the swap unless it's a Brandon in Caramoan situation. Even when Tony wanted to get rid of Cliff, he was adamantly opposed to throwing a challenge to do so (he's said as much in interviews post-game). After the swap, it makes more sense to consider doing that or to even vote out someone from your original tribe that you had issues with prior (we saw this in Millennials v. Gen X, for example). I think the same general principles apply to pre-merge votes. Generally, it's smart to align with the strong people and minimize your risk by attending as few tribal councils as you can before the swap. I'm not sure how "new" that strategy really is (which you allude to by putting it in quotes), as Rob's first season was Marquesas. At any rate, I think the problem for Troyzan is that both sides wanted to work with him, and he had no real reason not to trust the stronger guys. If I could only have trust or challenge strength, I would choose trust. But I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I think Troyzan could have had both in this case. Edit: I think that the meta for modern seasons makes winning challenges pre-merge perhaps less important, but Troyzan was playing in an era in which Pagongings were pretty common. They happened in both Redemption Island and South Pacific, as well as Heroes vs. Villains. In Tocantins and Samoa, there were reverse Pagongings where the smaller tribe plus someone who flipped eliminated everyone in the larger tribe. The other thing to keep in mind is that even in modern seasons, the abundance of idols and other advantages still make it very dangerous to attend tribal council, especially for someone who doesn't have an idol of their own that they can use as emergency protection in the case that the target plays an idol.
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 9, 2021 20:23:46 GMT -5
I have not had a chance to watch/listen to the podcast you embedded, so I will try to do that before discussing Fabio again.
I disagree that either of Bob's fake idols were used well strategically. The first one especially was sort of the fake idol version of a "big move," as it was something that looked cool but was actually pretty dumb. They didn't need the fake idol to send Randy home, and it put his jury vote in jeopardy for no good reason. Bob was lucky that Randy was more upset about Susie not giving him a cookie than he was about the fake idol. I mentioned earlier that I think this move gave Bob credibility with Sugar - maybe I should have put "credibility" in quotes, because it wasn't about trust, but giving Sugar a chance to embarrass Randy. But I think doing what Bob did influenced Sugar to clue him in about Kenny planning to boot Bob if Bob gave up the immunity necklace, and also to force a tie between Bob and Matty at Final Four. Would most players have done what Sugar did to help another player if that other player helped them to embarrass a rival/enemy? No, probably not, and there's no way Bob could have known that Sugar was going to do what she ultimately did. Still, there's no question that Sugar had power in the game at the time Randy was booted, and trying to appeal to players in power when one doesn't have power is a legitimate strategy. It would have been nice if Bob's appeal did not involve him helping to make Randy look like an idiot, but I'm not sure there was much else that Sugar really would have responded to. Also, I don't think you have the details of the cookie story quite right. Randy won the cookies at the auction and had to share them with the tribe. He offered Sugar a cookie; she declined, so he split that cookie between Matty and Corinne. Randy didn't take a cookie for himself; when he got to the last cookie, he offered it again to Sugar. She accepted, but then immediately gave it to Matty, which irritated Randy. Clearly it was petty and stupid. But what got Randy upset with Susie was when Susie said she felt sorry for him afterward, at the following tribal council. I think that Susie truly meant that sympathetically, that she wouldn't have wanted him to get upset over something so trivial. But Randy really didn't like that; it seems like he thought Susie was being patronizing. Randy might just be the kind of person who hates being laughed at or condescended to more than he hates being played - and Bob played him, but didn't look down on him.
As for the other one, I have written about how Bob (and everyone else) bungled that tribal before. But the important thing for Bob is that he actually was targeting Matty at that vote and used the fake idol to induce Kenny and Crystal to vote out Matty. This makes no sense for Bob, as Matty would beat him at Final Tribal Council 100% of the time. He lucked out that Kenny inexplicably split the votes incorrectly, even though he had reason to believe the idol was fake, which led to Corinne to getting voted out. As an aside, I think Kenny almost certainly cost himself a million dollars by making this move. I'm not sure I fully understand what you're trying to say here. You said Matty would beat Bob at Final Tribal Council 100% of the time; I agree that Matty was a big threat to win the game. So why should Bob not have targeted Matty? Are you saying that Bob needed to keep Matty around as a target so that Bob would have less of a target on himself? Or that Bob needed Matty to stay in the game so that there would be enough votes to eliminate Ken and Crystal? Or that Ken was going to get all the credit if Matty had been voted out, such that it would have improved Ken's position and not Bob's? On the other hand, I think the only person in Gabon who really liked Bob was Sugar, and all four of his votes were anti-Sugar/Susie rather than pro-Bob. Eh, I don't think Charlie was really trying to stick it to Sugar and Susie. He and Bob were in the same alliance and Bob did nothing to hurt Charlie while Charlie was in the game. Sure, Charlie basically stood by while Corinne and Randy were nasty to the non-Onions, but Charlie didn't seem to engage in much nastiness like that himself. At the final tribal council, he asked Sugar and Susie why they deserved to win when they had been ranked in low positions at the first tribe swap. I'll grant that that's not complimenting Sugar and Susie, but it was a fair question in the context of the game (obvious contrast to Corinne's vocal chords question) and Charlie gave both of them a legitimate opportunity to answer without shouting them down or trying to force them into saying something he wanted to hear. If you say Charlie wasn't strongly pro-Bob, I would agree - my guess is that if Bob made final three with another Onion Charlie likely doesn't vote for Bob unless the other Onion majorly betrayed him. But that does not mean that Charlie disliked Bob and just hated Sugar and Susie more.
And I think it goes both ways with Bob. If Sugar actually wanted to win the game, Bob gets voted out at final four no questions asked. And let's not forget that Bob was on the verge of becoming Erik 2.0 and getting voted out after giving the necklace to Kenny, but Sugar intervened to save him. I guess Bob deserves credit for his relationship with Sugar, but she was very capricious (her top ally was first Ace and then Kenny and then Matty and finally Bob). He was lucky she picked him as her favorite last. But she was really his benefactor in the game and the one who was actually driving the strategy late. Counterintuitively, Bob was also lucky that Susie won final immunity, because if she hadn't, he's stuck with an unwinnable matchup with Matty at FTC. If Sugar actually wanted to win the game, she would have had to do a lot differently than she did. As you noted, Matty was a big threat, so voting for Bob instead of Matty at the final four would not have helped, it actually would have made things worse for her. Of the players who made the merge, Sugar probably needed to be in a final 3 with Susie and Crystal to win - and she would have needed to have a lot fewer problems with the jury members to even have a shot in that matchup. I agree with most of what you wrote otherwise about Sugar. As for the final immunity challenge, I think it might be more accurate to say that Bob didn't need Susie to win final immunity so much as he needed Matty to not win it. If Bob had won immunity himself, you think that Matty and Sugar agree to vote Susie and Bob just goes along? Would Sugar try to create a tie vote in that circumstance just for extra drama anyway? Or do you think that Matty and Susie would agree to vote Sugar and Bob would just go along, after Sugar saved Bob from Ken? Alternately, if Sugar had won immunity (maybe not likely but not impossible - she wasn't that bad at challenges), are you sure the vote swings 3-1 against Susie? Susie didn't have to plead with anyone to save her in the actual game, but if she had had to do that and would have suggested putting Matty into a tiebreaker with her, you're sure Bob just ignores that opportunity to potentially get rid of Matty as the biggest threat?
My point with needing Matty to not win is that quite a few winners that did not win the final immunity themselves needed someone else to not win the final immunity in order for them to win - Richard needed Rudy to not win in S1 (Rudy would have won if he made final tribal), Vecepia needed Kathy to not win in S4 (Kathy would have won if she made final tribal), Sandra needed Jon to not win in S7 (he would have voted her out and kept Lil), Aras needed Terry to not win in S12 (Terry would have voted him out and kept Danielle), Natalie needed Brett to not win in S19 (Brett would have won if he made final tribal), Denise needed Malcolm to not win in S25 (Michael/Lisa were always voting with each other and Malcolm wasn't going to try to save Denise with a tiebreaker), etc.
I think Gabon is the worst cast ever just measured by who its best player was.
Do you think the winner is automatically the best player of their season? I'm not sure I've ever seen you say that one way or the other in this thread - I haven't posted in this thread very much up to this point, but I have read/skimmed through most of it. I'm not sure I would have much of an argument if you say the winner is the best player, or alternatively, if you have a few specific seasons where you might think the winner wasn't the best player. I'm mainly curious how much you tie Bob's performance to the badness of the cast.
Just to be clear, I have no problem if we end up agreeing to disagree - I didn't post this to tear you down or get into an endless argument. I appreciate what you posted about Fabio and as I said, I will try to listen to the podcast.
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